Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) using tumor reactive T cells can produce positive clinical responses in cancer patients. Nevertheless, several obstacles to the successful use of ACT for the treatment of cancer and other diseases remain. For example, T cells isolated from the peripheral blood of a host may not exhibit sufficient tumor-specific reactivity or persist in the peripheral blood upon reinfusion into patients. Accordingly, there is a need for improved methods of obtaining a population of antigen-specific T cells from the peripheral blood of a host that exhibit sufficient tumor-specific reactivity and which persist in the blood of patients.